Thoughts on the mixed race, globalised world of the future

[Isoko]

So there was a post earlier by Eric the Green stating his usual left wing kingdom of heaven beliefs. Basically the how the world is going to continually be globalised and how everyone is going to be one big mixed race blob in the future with no countries or identies.

Now I've heard this what I'd like to call left wing kingdom of heaven beliefs before. So I recoiled in horror at such a prospect, saying how I'll be glad to be dead before such a world comes into existence. I have no shame in saying this and I would like to elaborate more on thoughts here about this concept.

The truth is, why would we want to live in such a world? Would it make the world a better place to live in? Why would such a world become better and more desirable then the previous one? There is a naive delusion amongst the left that if we mix everyone together, then all problems vanish and we can love one another. But Human beings are what they are and would simply find another reason to hate.

If we were to follow this version to the fullest, I think overall we would end up in the India scenario. There would be a lighter brown elite at the top and a darker brown proletariat at the bottom, fighting for whatever meager resources are available. How would it be an improvement on what we have now? Would it merely be a repeat of the past?

To be honest, this belief actually frightens me to think people actually believe this would make the world a better place. I will share you my ideal world and it is one that is common in the Russian Federation. It is designed on centre right thinking but I think it is a better ideal then the one I have just discussed.

A world of borders with different people and ethnic groups that learn to cooperate with each other. Imagine it like a street and we have different houses in the street. Do we all live in the same house? No. But we all live on the same street and look out for one another. Every house is different too and has its own unique vibrancy and taste.

You know, the Russian Federation is a nation of many different tribes and nations. Yet they do not mix together en masse but they live together peacefully as neighbours. As a result, a lot of traditions and identities are passed down through the generations and continue to do so. 

What is better I ask you all? A world government where everybody looks the same, acts the same, wears the same clothes? Where there is no Japan? No Russia? No Angola? Wouldn't that be a boring world to live in? 

Wouldn't real progress be living in peace with each other but preserving what we have to make the future even brighter? This I think is a real test of Humanity and if we could achieve this without the destruction of "progress", then boy, wouldn't we have achieved something? The preservation of the old combined with the new.

Is it wrong to dream this way? Is it unrealistic? I don't know. Does it make me racist for not desiring the left wing future? Or maybe an idealist perhaps?

Maybe it is but a sad and depressing reality. Maybe we are all destined to become the same. Depresses me a lot to think about actually. Always has done. I never saw any light in it.

Dunno if anyone feels the same way but give me a shout out if you do think it would be a sad reality.

[Blazkovitz]

(06-09-2020, 02:59 PM)Isoko Wrote: If we were to follow this version to the fullest, I think overall we would end up in the India scenario. There would be a lighter brown elite at the top and a darker brown proletariat at the bottom, fighting for whatever meager resources are available. How would it be an improvement on what we have now? Would it merely be a repeat of the past?

The alleged difference between races is about 15 IQ points, assuming that IQ is as important as you think. Actually there are two problems with your mindset. First, I think emotional intelligence is a more important predictor of success. Also, I don't think the differences in abilities between races are genetic. In 700 AD, a Brown Maya or Black Nubian was a more civilized person than an Eastern European white tribesman, and probably had higher IQ and EQ. The differences are more likely related to nutrition and socialization one receives as a child. But let's stick to your assumptions for the sake of the discussion.

Biotechnological enhancement of human beings is coming, and those enhanced people (let's call them galactic humans) can have an average of 200 or more IQ points and appropriately higher EQ. This will make the racial differences irrelevant. So it's more probably that there will be an enhanced elite at the top and basic human proletarians at the bottom. But this won't last forever too. First, the galactic humans will figure out how to relegate the proletariat's work to machines. Second, the enhancements will become ever more accessible and the proletarians will remake themselves or their children into galactic humans too. Some fundamentalist groups of basic humans will survive but they won't be important in overall scheme of things, like the remaining hunter-gatherer groups aren't important today.

Quote:To be honest, this belief actually frightens me to think people actually believe this would make the world a better place. I will share you my ideal world and it is one that is common in the Russian Federation. It is designed on centre right thinking but I think it is a better ideal then the one I have just discussed.

A world of borders with different people and ethnic groups that learn to cooperate with each other. Imagine it like a street and we have different houses in the street. Do we all live in the same house? No. But we all live on the same street and look out for one another. Every house is different too and has its own unique vibrancy and taste.

It is called internationalism and is actually promoted by the "cultural diversity" Leftists. But it's not something that will continue. People are travelling more and there are more mixed couples, which means more children of mixed ancestry. Also, people are more influenced by the global media and less by their families. Thus weaker cultures are already assimilated by stronger ones, until eventually there is one global culture. It can be stopped only by totalitarian coercion. Compare North Korea and South Korea. North Koreans retained more of their traditional culture, only because their government banned them from knowing the wider world.

BTW don't use "centre-right" to describe your ideology. To me, centre-right means somebody like GW Bush. Don't be ashamed to call yourself neoreactionary.

Quote:You know, the Russian Federation is a nation of many different tribes and nations. Yet they do not mix together en masse but they live together peacefully as neighbours. As a result, a lot of traditions and identities are passed down through the generations and continue to do so. 

Do you know about the Chechen wars? The Chechens did not want to be a part of Russia, of course they were subdued but they will rebel again because they see Russia as an oppressor. So your claim that "different tribes and nations live together peacefully" is simply Putinist propaganda.

Quote:What is better I ask you all? A world government where everybody looks the same, acts the same, wears the same clothes? Where there is no Japan? No Russia? No Angola? Wouldn't that be a boring world to live in? 

More diversity comes from differences between individual personalities and subcultures than from preservation of traditional heritage. We can use some of traditional heritage in a playful way, not being enslaved by it. Noone stops you from building a Victorian style house, or wearing a toga. And transhumanism will create more diversity of body types than there are today. Maybe there will be people with purple skin, or with cat ears. I wouldn't want such a child, but anime fans might.

Actually it's traditional societies that can be described as "everybody looks the same, acts the same, wears the same clothes".

[pbrower2a]

(06-11-2020, 02:54 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote:

(06-09-2020, 02:59 PM)Isoko Wrote: If we were to follow this version to the fullest, I think overall we would end up in the India scenario. There would be a lighter brown elite at the top and a darker brown proletariat at the bottom, fighting for whatever meager resources are available. How would it be an improvement on what we have now? Would it merely be a repeat of the past?

The alleged difference between races is about 15 IQ points, assuming that IQ is as important as you think. Actually there are two problems with your mindset. First, I think emotional intelligence is a more important predictor of success. Also, I don't think the differences in abilities between races are genetic. In 700 AD, a Brown Maya or Black Nubian was a more civilized person than an Eastern European white tribesman, and probably had higher IQ and EQ. The differences are more likely related to nutrition and socialization one receives as a child. But let's stick to your assumptions for the sake of the discussion.

Figuring that  (in the 1980's) that the average "black" American had about 30% African ancestry (which has been reduced considerably due to children of mixed race involving a black parent and a non-black parent that the typical mixed-race  person  is now 35% of non-African origin and is thus 65% non-black)... if the difference is genetic -- if the non-black parent is 'average' in intelligence... has an IQ 7.5 points lower than for white people... if the racial and ethnic connection is valid. 

At what point is African ancestry  so diluted that it becomes invisible and irrelevant?  

Quote:Biotechnological enhancement of human beings is coming, and those enhanced people (let's call them galactic humans) can have an average of 200 or more IQ points and appropriately higher EQ. This will make the racial differences irrelevant. So it's more probably that there will be an enhanced elite at the top and basic human proletarians at the bottom. But this won't last forever too. First, the galactic humans will figure out how to relegate the proletariat's work to machines. Second, the enhancements will become ever more accessible and the proletarians will remake themselves or their children into galactic humans too. Some fundamentalist groups of basic humans will survive but they won't be important in overall scheme of things, like the remaining hunter-gatherer groups aren't important today.

Doubtful. The average human IQ is where it is because of evolutionary reality. It could be that too big a brain would make childbirth far too dangerous to a woman. It could also be that functioning societies depend upon hierarchy between the smart and the stupid. Every society needs its laborers -- the hewers of wood and the carriers of water in antiquarian terms. Although people with high IQ's might be consummately valuable as the physicians, attorneys, theologians, top-level teachers, accountants, engineers, generals, admirals, administrators, and creative people... such people can be about 2.5% of the population because with a 15-point standard deviation for intelligence, that is about how many people have IQ above 130. In all societies these people are paid well. 

In modern societies, fitting people with IQ significantly above 100 into slots as toilers and servants creates troubles. One needs be at a certain level of stupidity to like a job as a cleaner or a lumberjack.  Ideally there are enough jobs as technicians, salesmen, teachers, nurses, cops, and skilled laborers to sop up such people. If not -- then there is bureaucracy. Look at it this way: bureaucracy is a way of rewarding people of slightly-above-average ability so that people in a capitalist order do not come up with Marxist critiques of capitalism and that their counterparts in socialist regimes do not come up with bourgeois critiques of the regime. People in those bureaucracies pretend to work but really create nothing other than paperwork, but still live satisfying lives.   

Quote:

Quote:To be honest, this belief actually frightens me to think people actually believe this would make the world a better place. I will share you my ideal world and it is one that is common in the Russian Federation. It is designed on centre right thinking but I think it is a better ideal then the one I have just discussed.

A world of borders with different people and ethnic groups that learn to cooperate with each other. Imagine it like a street and we have different houses in the street. Do we all live in the same house? No. But we all live on the same street and look out for one another. Every house is different too and has its own unique vibrancy and taste.

It is called internationalism and is actually promoted by the "cultural diversity" Leftists. But it's not something that will continue. People are travelling more and there are more mixed couples, which means more children of mixed ancestry. Also, people are more influenced by the global media and less by their families. Thus weaker cultures are already assimilated by stronger ones, until eventually there is one global culture. It can be stopped only by totalitarian coercion. Compare North Korea and South Korea. North Koreans retained more of their traditional culture, only because their government banned them from knowing the wider world.

Cultural diversity at least makes life more interesting. So it is with a bonsai tree if you are a German-American or Bach if you are a Japanese-American.  But let us remember that the 'global media' offer much content designed to numb and pacify morons and near-morons. Do you really think that the pop music our our time is better than that of the Big Band era, let alone the popular music of about 230 years ago in Vienna? Haydn and Mozart wrote highly-accessible music then treated much like the Big Band music of 80 years ago was treated 80 years ago. Maybe I could be very happy going on a road trip with a dog and a complete set of Haydn symphonies. I was thinking of Haydn string quartets, but dogs generally hate pure string music. 

Quote:

Quote:You know, the Russian Federation is a nation of many different tribes and nations. Yet they do not mix together en masse but they live together peacefully as neighbours. As a result, a lot of traditions and identities are passed down through the generations and continue to do so. 

Do you know about the Chechen wars? The Chechens did not want to be a part of Russia, of course they were subdued but they will rebel again because they see Russia as an oppressor. So your claim that "different tribes and nations live together peacefully" is simply Putinist propaganda.

America has its many groups of sundry origin, but unlike the case in Russia, they are scattered about. For example, Italian-Americans are common in all urban areas, but there is no part of America in which "Italian" culture overpowers all else.  In Russia are large areas in which one non-Russian group predominates.  

Quote:What is better I ask you all? A world government where everybody looks the same, acts the same, wears the same clothes? Where there is no Japan? No Russia? No Angola? Wouldn't that be a boring world to live in? 

Quote:More diversity comes from differences between individual personalities and subcultures than from preservation of traditional heritage. We can use some of traditional heritage in a playful way, not being enslaved by it. Noone stops you from building a Victorian style house, or wearing a toga. And transhumanism will create more diversity of body types than there are today. Maybe there will be people with purple skin, or with cat ears. I wouldn't want such a child, but anime fans might.

Actually it's traditional societies that can be described as "everybody looks the same, acts the same, wears the same clothes".

[/quote]

Individuality or identity? I will take individuality any time. Wearing a toga while living in a Victorian house is eccentric. Cat ears or purple skin? That would be cruel.

[Eric the Green]

Being a center-right or reactionary person, Isoko lives in the past and is trying to hang onto it. Globalization is inevitable, because global technology, commerce and culture does and will increasingly cross borders. Racism is obsolete, and that's a good thing. Separation into groups is not a good thing, and cooperation between separate groups is no more likely in the future than it is today. Russia is about as far away from the desirable or ideal state as exists on the planet today. Shameful! Deplorable!

Since all races will be mixed, it will be impossible to classify some people as more brown than others. Nor will there be any difference between color groups regarding any kind of ability. Such stratification will be obsolete. Individual differences will remain.

There will be global religion, science, culture, and politics. There is always a concern about totalitarian or authoritarian rule, and that is certainly justified. Globalism alone is not progress; it is just an inevitable part of the changes we are experiencing. Whether local, national or global, authoritarian rule belongs to the past, and it is a relic of less-enlightened times. The new now-evolving global society will be a federation with checks and balances, with more global control and cooperation where needed, but also more local and community control and cooperation than exists today. Community economics will balance global economics.

People naturally want more freedom and creativity, and they want more cooperation within the larger groups. People want social democracy and democratic socialism. That is the future. Human rights, and equal justice and opportunity. The philosopher Hegel was a prophet of the idea that history is the unfolding of human freedom, and Teilhard De Chardin extended this account to all of evolution.

[Blazkovitz]

(06-11-2020, 05:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Cultural diversity at least makes life more interesting. So it is with a bonsai tree if you are a German-American or Bach if you are a Japanese-American.  But let us remember that the 'global media' offer much content designed to numb and pacify morons and near-morons. Do you really think that the pop music our our time is better than that of the Big Band era, let alone the popular music of about 230 years ago in Vienna? Haydn and Mozart wrote highly-accessible music then treated much like the Big Band music of 80 years ago was treated 80 years ago.

Because of globalization and technology, we have more access to the world's cultural heritage than earlier generations. I'm not into classical music, but if anything with today's media it's more accessible to an average citizen than it was in the 18th century. Same for poetry or visual arts. There is a lot of valuable content online, but you have to find it among the garbage.

Quote:Cat ears or purple skin? That would be cruel.

It would be an equivalent of super creative names like Elon Musk's X Æ A-12 It might be the case our descendants in 3000 or 4000 will say "we used to do such things but we gave it up". Or it may become something completely normal. We cannot know.

Eric the Green Wrote:Russia is about as far away from the desirable or ideal state as exists on the planet today.

It's still definitely better than North Korea or Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. Or than Russia of 1950. They have improved a lot comparing to the Stalinist era.

Quote:That is the future. Human rights, and equal justice and opportunity. The philosopher Hegel was a prophet of the idea that history is the unfolding of human freedom, and Teilhard De Chardin extended this account to all of evolution.

Homo galacticus will be freer than Homo sapiens, because he will be less enslaved by evolved psychology inherited from cavemen. Freer, and at the same time more spontaneously virtuous. There will more diversity of personalities, but dangerous traits like sadism and psychopathy won't be present.

[David Horn]

(06-12-2020, 02:29 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Homo galacticus will be freer than Homo sapiens, because he will be less enslaved by evolved psychology inherited from cavemen. Freer, and at the same time more spontaneously virtuous. There will more diversity of personalities, but dangerous traits like sadism and psychopathy won't be present.

What we are, and how we react to our environment, has been baked-in over the entirety of human existence. Some we inherited from much earlier life, like fight or flight. I have a hard time seeing that being wiped away by moving our progeny into space, unless homo galacticus isn't derived from us.

[Isoko]

Some interesting responses on here. I have to say that from a more conservative prospective, it is disappointing that people on here seem enthusiastic about this potential future. But I have noticed that most of the members here tend to be to the left wing so it is expected to hear the responses.

Without further ado, let's start with....

Blazkovitz,

1) I think that overall your belief in the neverending technological progress of Humanity and the birth of some sort of technological singularity is quite a long way off, maybe even never. I was reading an interesting post by a guy I like to read called John Michael Greer who criticises the glorious technological future theory quite well.

For example, he uses the flying car theory and pulls it apart quite nicely. For decades they have been predicting a huge rise in mass forms of commercial technological that will radically revolutionise life as we know it. Yet it never happened and the last greatest invention was the internet.

Yet now that is starting to lose its ability to innovate and has essentially become a tapped out resource. What has been done has already been done and it is basically being used as a facebook dumping ground for the masses.

In other words, we've peaked out. The only thing left at this stage is genetic engineering but how far that will successfully go is another question. If I am to be honest, I do not think we will be seeing any major revolutionary advances this century.

Also your future, although you paint it as optimistic, scares the hell out of me. It is basically brave new world and I see it as a basically a the road to hell is paved with good intentions scenario. The idea of us losing our Humanity and becoming fully integrated into the machine I think leads to a dystopian future rather then anything positive.

2) To be honest I think this grand mixing experiment is starting to die down. From my own observations, the vast majority of people usually marry within their own racial or ethnic group. I'd say about 82 percent in Western countries and more closer to 98 percent in the east. The vast majority of mixing usually occurs in America.

I know of many young people where I am from in the UK who usually stay in the same communities their ancestors have lived in, marry someone local, have the usual 2 or 3 kids and continue the cycle. I was rather adventurous in marrying a Russian in that regard...

But the point is I think most people are genetically developed to marry within their own group or to someone very similar to themselves. It usually is even more prominent in Asian countries.

3) By Western standards I would be considered a Neoreactionary. By Russian standards I am considered centre right. I was once hosting a speaking club and a student honestly said to me that my views would be centrist in Russia...

So what is actually the political orientation in Russia?

Well the vast majority of the population would be considered centre right like myself, which would once again mean the entire population is neo reactionary. Even the liberals of Russia usually tend to be within this orientation.

To be right wing in Russia is to be a Putinist. Mother Russia is greatest country in all the world! Far Right is basically kill 'em all. Left wing ideas never do that well here and are usually seen as Western derived.

In the West, therefore, liberalism is too prominent within the societal structure meaning that right wing is really some form of liberalism.

4) Actually that isn't Putinist propaganda but the vast majority of ethnic groups in Russia get along. They live separately and usually marry within their own groups but overall there isn't any animosity and ever has been. 

Except for Chechnya but that was a weird case. Not even the Daghestani people have anything against Russia. Ukrainians only in Ukraine have issues with Russia but many actually come to immigrate to Russia and there is no major problems. 

I'd say this great melting pot concept is more of an American thing if I am honest.

Now for Eric...,

You know Eric, I actually want to apologise to you. I think we got off on the wrong foot and have been in this sort of cold war since. What do you say we let bygones be bygones, shake hands and just get on? I like posting here, you like posting here, so let's be big men about it, eh? If your ever in Russia or I'm ever in America, I'll buy you a beer sometime.

Anyway in response to your main post...

I think that overall it is naive to assume all the races to mix together in 200 years. I think this is a very American phenomenon and not likely the main outcome in the rest of the world. As I mentioned before, the vast majority of people marry within their own race and conservative attitudes towards race mixing tend to be more prevalent in Europe and to a greater extent in Asia and Africa.

Despite being democracies, Japan and South Korea still refuse to accept refugees into their countries and only usually marry within their own group. Same with China. Due to a lack of marriage parners, rather then marry outside the race, they are doing what they did in the past and marrying people closest to them racial wise. In Japan's case this would be Koreans, Chinese and if they feel more adventurous, Filipinos and Thai's. This usually happens once every so many centuries in these countries until things stabilise and they start to focus on being "the cleanest race" again. 

As for Europe, it's less conservative then Asia but way more conservative then say the U.S. I would honestly say the only major change for Europe has been less group intermarriage and more marriage between fellow Europeans. But this is mainly amongst the middle classes.

I'll go a step further and say that rather then a coffee coloured future, it is likely European starts to dismantle some of its traditional nation states and reshapes itself into new regions, very similar to what happened with the German states before Bismarckian unification.

Still, your views are very American and I agree that for America, it is the likely future. As a friend of mine from Finland once jokingly noted to me, "in America, 1/3 of the population will deliberately shag outside their race. 1/3 will not shag outside the group. The remaining 1/3 do not care who they shag." He also noted that America's future is likely to be the orange man from South Park.

Anyway, no hard feelings.

[Eric the Green]

For you and others of discriminating taste, I keep trying to share the inspiration that so moved me in the mid/late 1960s and early 1970s in pop and folk/rock music. It is something to explore, and it is a musical peak.

Mozart and Beethoven, especially in their final symphonies, achieved the summit in orchestral music that will probably never be equalled. Before that, Bach and Handel were the summit of earlier music. The hits of the Big Band era were artistically produced and performed. Glenn Miller's In the Mood and Moonlight Serenade captured the mood of the era on the eve of world war, and were probably the two best tunes of the time.

The 1960s and 70s contained the usual abundance of mediocre pop drivel as has been given us since the Big Band era. But it was unique because some artists of that time aspired to the heights that Mozart achieved in his 41 finale on the eve of the Revolution, the peak of classical music which may never be equaled. But the spiritual and psychedelic awakening put amazing experiences into the music in the sixties and inspired the artists to create a new electronic sound. Much wizardry was expressed, and heart-stilling, profound moments of transcendence put into sound.

You can hear some of this in my top 10 rock and folk-rock pieces from the era. If the Who may rock too hard for you, it was they who created the rock opera form and made it a vehicle of music with classical quality. This is a countdown with #10 first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFB4rsAy...8WXtIToaiV

Further down on my list of top 400-plus you can hear such amazing classics as Classical Gas by Mason Williams, Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones, Blowin in the Wind by Peter Paul and Mary (Bob Dylan song), A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall and Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan, Suzanne by Judy Collins (Leonard Cohen song), Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding, What's Goin On by Marvin Gaye, Baby Love by the Supremes, Dancing in the Street by Martha and the Vandellas (Marvin Gaye song), My Guy by Mary Wells (Smokey Robinson tune), Celeste by Donovan, Song is Over by The Who, I Couldn't Live Without Your Love by Petula Clark, the exploits of early Pink Floyd, the Quadrophenia and Tommy instrumentals by The Who, Here There and Everywhere by The Beatles (spellbinding ballad by Paul McCartney) and so many more.

http://philosopherswheel.com/ericrock.html

[Blazkovitz]

(06-12-2020, 07:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-12-2020, 02:29 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Homo galacticus will be freer than Homo sapiens, because he will be less enslaved by evolved psychology inherited from cavemen. Freer, and at the same time more spontaneously virtuous. There will more diversity of personalities, but dangerous traits like sadism and psychopathy won't be present.

What we are, and how we react to our environment, has been baked-in over the entirety of human existence.  Some we inherited from much earlier life, like fight or flight.  I have a hard time seeing that being wiped away by moving our progeny into space, unless homo galacticus isn't derived from us.

Homo galacticus will have all that is best in us, and things which aren't so wholesome will be either eliminated or subdued. I don't say it'll happen as a result of moving into space, but as a result of genetic engineering.

And as for race mixing and downplaying ethnic heritage, Mars will be more American than America. A melted pot on steroids!

[David Horn]

(06-13-2020, 05:44 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote:

(06-12-2020, 07:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-12-2020, 02:29 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Homo galacticus will be freer than Homo sapiens, because he will be less enslaved by evolved psychology inherited from cavemen. Freer, and at the same time more spontaneously virtuous. There will more diversity of personalities, but dangerous traits like sadism and psychopathy won't be present.

What we are, and how we react to our environment, has been baked-in over the entirety of human existence.  Some we inherited from much earlier life, like fight or flight.  I have a hard time seeing that being wiped away by moving our progeny into space, unless homo galacticus isn't derived from us.

Homo galacticus will have all that is best in us, and things which aren't so wholesome will be either eliminated or subdued. I don't say it'll happen as a result of moving into space, but as a result of genetic engineering.

And as for race mixing and downplaying ethnic heritage, Mars will be more American than America. A melted pot on steroids!

That's a beautiful vision neither of us will see. It's beautiful nonetheless.  If it happens, and I remain a sceptic, it will require a full saeculum to implement.

[beechnut79]

(06-13-2020, 07:42 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-13-2020, 05:44 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote:

(06-12-2020, 07:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-12-2020, 02:29 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Homo galacticus will be freer than Homo sapiens, because he will be less enslaved by evolved psychology inherited from cavemen. Freer, and at the same time more spontaneously virtuous. There will more diversity of personalities, but dangerous traits like sadism and psychopathy won't be present.

What we are, and how we react to our environment, has been baked-in over the entirety of human existence.  Some we inherited from much earlier life, like fight or flight.  I have a hard time seeing that being wiped away by moving our progeny into space, unless homo galacticus isn't derived from us.

Homo galacticus will have all that is best in us, and things which aren't so wholesome will be either eliminated or subdued. I don't say it'll happen as a result of moving into space, but as a result of genetic engineering.

And as for race mixing and downplaying ethnic heritage, Mars will be more American than America. A melted pot on steroids!

That's a beautiful vision neither of us will see. It's beautiful nonetheless.  If it happens, and I remain a sceptic, it will require a full saeculum to implement.

Sounds like a Brigadoon type vision, doesn’t it?

[pbrower2a]

(06-12-2020, 08:07 AM)Isoko Wrote: Some interesting responses on here. I have to say that from a more conservative prospective, it is disappointing that people on here seem enthusiastic about this potential future. But I have noticed that most of the members here tend to be to the left wing so it is expected to hear the responses.

Without further ado, let's start with....

Blazkovitz,

1) I think that overall your belief in the neverending technological progress of Humanity and the birth of some sort of technological singularity is quite a long way off, maybe even never. I was reading an interesting post by a guy I like to read called John Michael Greer who criticises the glorious technological future theory quite well.

For example, he uses the flying car theory and pulls it apart quite nicely. For decades they have been predicting a huge rise in mass forms of commercial technological that will radically revolutionise life as we know it. Yet it never happened and the last greatest invention was the internet.

Yet now that is starting to lose its ability to innovate and has essentially become a tapped out resource. What has been done has already been done and it is basically being used as a facebook dumping ground for the masses.

Human potential has its limitations. Good reason exists for the average human intelligence being where it is. A lower level of intelligence makes people more likely to die before procreating, although the local environment might make some places (typically tropical climates with copious rainfall) less demanding than the subtropical climates (such as those of Dallas, Rome, or Tokyo), more so the  fire-and-ice climates (Chicago, Kiev, or Beijing) near -subarctic locations with tough demands and modest rewards for efforts (Edmonton, Helsinki), let alone polar areas which compel difficult ways of life . (Consider that in the context of Arnold Toynbee connecting human progress to some optimal difficulty in life). It may not be coincidence that early civilization flourished in the valley of the Nile, where people could survive only if well organized and able to do food storage and record-keeping... instead of in the valley of the Rhine River or the Ohio River.  The flourishing of ancient Athens suggests that Athens had some particular opportunities and challenges (Athens is in a semidesert area with no easy access to water, which severely limits local agriculture, but requires sophisticated commerce for survival of a viable community; merchants' kids needed above-average learning, and Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle filled the bill for merchants while Euclid was great for teaching the geometry behind the carpentry for building land structures and sailing ships... now you know...

Can technology and intellectual sophistication outpace human learning and innovation? We are close to that point, with robots and computers involved in technological innovation. Add to this, we are approaching the end of the line for material productivity itself creating any perception of increases in human welfare. Obviously we need the basics such as food and will need such intangibles as insurance... but in essence, note well the rarity of three-car garages. 

Japan was the first country to reach that condition. Its economic boom ended and has never restarted. We Americans may be facing that.      

Quote:In other words, we've peaked out. The only thing left at this stage is genetic engineering but how far that will successfully go is another question. If I am to be honest, I do not think we will be seeing any major revolutionary advances this century.

Also your future, although you paint it as optimistic, scares the hell out of me. It is basically brave new world and I see it as a basically a the road to hell is paved with good intentions scenario. The idea of us losing our Humanity and becoming fully integrated into the machine I think leads to a dystopian future rather then anything positive.

Brave New World -- literally. Such implies its own hierarchy of privilege and deprivation based upon intelligence. But note well that that dystopian society still depends upon the intellectual "deltas" and "epsilons" who end up doing the mindless, repetitive toil such as farm labor. 

Human-machine merger? We have long had people compelled to act as if machines, most blatantly as slaves. The lust by some for ultra-cheap labor powerless to contest its treatment always seems to re-emerge; Simon Legree remains one of the arch-villains of fictional literature... and all too real in the Third Reich, which died about 75 years ago. Man will need some integration with machines just to move fast (vehicles) or to work in dangerous environments (space, the deep sea, highly-radioactive or anoxic locations, maybe some very deep (and hot) mines...  maybe we will have integration of mechanical parts with the human mind to extend lifespans of the mind or to restore natural mobility to people who have lost it due to amputations or spinal-cord injuries)... but we had better preserve our human characteristics for such to work.   

Quote:2) To be honest I think this grand mixing experiment is starting to die down. From my own observations, the vast majority of people usually marry within their own racial or ethnic group. I'd say about 82 percent in Western countries and more closer to 98 percent in the east. The vast majority of mixing usually occurs in America.

Of course, race-mixing implies children who are much more ambiguous about their identity than their parents. People of mixed race (let us say Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet) might find each other attractive for reasons other than appearance, such as having nearly-identical origins (Lenny Kravitz has a white Jewish father and an Afro-Caribbean mother; Lisa Bonet has a black American father and a white Jewish mother. Their daughter Zoe  is of course 'half Jewish and half black' in a way that neither of their parents are.

So what way do the children go? Need I go into the details? Do they go for something close to one part of their heritage or for the other? The one-drop rule still matters in perception, but I would suspect that white people who marry someone of partial African ancestry are most likely to marry someone closer to looking white. A spouse 'one-eighth' African is likely to cause fewer problems with white in-laws than someone 'really, really' black.  

The most commonplace racial mixing in America is not between black and white, which is the most visible; it is between white Anglo people and various, usually mixed-race or American First Peoples, people of Latin-American origin. I'm not going to count as a mixed marriage some Italian-Argentine and Italian-American couple. OK, so "Jack Rivera", a Mexican-American with many obvious First People characteristics, marries "Jill Sullivan", an Irish-American woman... and they have children. What are they? Or will there be a large population of people of mixed-race people who develop some hybrid culture?         

Quote:I know of many young people where I am from in the UK who usually stay in the same communities their ancestors have lived in, marry someone local, have the usual 2 or 3 kids and continue the cycle. I was rather adventurous in marrying a Russian in that regard...

Obviously not as adventurous as marrying a black Nigerian or West Indian... or even a South Asian! 

Quote:But the point is I think most people are genetically developed to marry within their own group or to someone very similar to themselves. It usually is even more prominent in Asian countries.

When I was in college in California in the 1970's, I found Asian-American women very tempting. 

3) By Western standards I would be considered a Neoreactionary. By Russian standards I am considered centre right. I was once hosting a speaking club and a student honestly said to me that my views would be centrist in Russia...

Quote:So what is actually the political orientation in Russia?

Russia has a very different political heritage from that of any other country in Europe except for eastern parts of Belarus and Ukraine that were under the tsars until 1917 and under Communist rule from 1917 to 1991, except perhaps for the traumas of the Russian Civil War and Nazi occupation. Soviet-era satellites and even western Ukraine and Belarus and the Baltic states had differences of history. It is easy to think of countries like Poland and Romania to be recent Soviet satellites... until one realizes that Commie rule in such countries ended over thirty years ago. Thus many young Czechs and Hungarians have no memory of Communism, although they know that Communism was a bad idea.

Quote:Well the vast majority of the population would be considered centre right like myself, which would once again mean the entire population is neo reactionary. Even the liberals of Russia usually tend to be within this orientation.

To be right wing in Russia is to be a Putinist. Mother Russia is greatest country in all the world! Far Right is basically kill 'em all. Left wing ideas never do that well here and are usually seen as Western derived.

Russia was a strong participant in neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment; contrast Poland, a full participant in both. Such monarchs as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great found a veneer of such useful. Russia had its intellectual awakening only in the nineteenth century. But that was in technology, science, literature, and music... and to a lesser extent visual art... and not in politics. It is arguable that Lenin was successful in establishing his cranky version of Marxism only because Russia had not sorted out political life as even Germany had.

Quote:In the West, therefore, liberalism is too prominent within the societal structure meaning that right wing is really some form of liberalism.

I remember reading a book in which the writer disparaged the idea that Churchill was a revolutionary and that Hitler was a reactionary. If anything Churchill was the reactionary as someone defending old, entrenched decencies in his country's political heritage and Hitler was a revolutionary for breaking down such old decencies. Churchill was good; Hitler was of course demonic. At that, the relevant issue is good versus evil, and if one must choose between a revolution that largely serves evil purposes and some stodgy, shopworn conservatism that preserves old virtues, then one must be a conservative. The political problem in Russia is that liberal ideas are still exotic in ways in which liberal ideas are no longer so exotic in places such as India, Indonesia, and Japan.

Quote:4) Actually that isn't Putinist propaganda but the vast majority of ethnic groups in Russia get along. They live separately and usually marry within their own groups but overall there isn't any animosity and ever has been. 

The world has plenty of lessons about people seeing that people somewhat different from themselves as enemies due to difference alone, often on something slight (as between Germans who have Jesus and Germans who had most of the Christian Bible as sacred text but were resolute in believing that they did not need Jesus) is pure tragedy.

Quote:I'd say this great melting pot concept is more of an American thing if I am honest.

It is a reality in the UK in part because some people of African origin (former African colonies of the UK and certainly the West Indies) have far more in common with Brits by culture than do any white non-British Europeans! The difference in America is that American blacks still largely feel some heritage of slavery in America -- and slavery compelled African-American slaves to adopt a culture different from that of the surrounding white population. The historian David Hackett-Fischer tells us that slave-descended African-Americans have no cultural legacy from Africa because the early slave-masters compelled slaves to abandon any such heritage. To be sure, slave-descended African-Americans have been highly creative in establishing culture distinctly theirs at the outset that has been good enough for attracting the interest of non-blacks. But that creativity is distinctly American.
Now for Eric...,

You know Eric, I actually want to apologise to you. I think we got off on the wrong foot and have been in this sort of cold war since. What do you say we let bygones be bygones, shake hands and just get on? I like posting here, you like posting here, so let's be big men about it, eh? If your ever in Russia or I'm ever in America, I'll buy you a beer sometime.

Quote:Despite being democracies, Japan and South Korea still refuse to accept refugees into their countries and only usually marry within their own group. Same with China. Due to a lack of marriage partners, rather then marry outside the race, they are doing what they did in the past and marrying people closest to them racial wise. In Japan's case this would be Koreans, Chinese and if they feel more adventurous, Filipinos and Thai's. This usually happens once every so many centuries in these countries until things stabilise and they start to focus on being "the cleanest race" again.

 

I would suspect that the "Thai", "Filipino" and (you missed) "Vietnamese" that Japanese people marry are largely descended from the Chinese diaspora within those countries. I suspect also that there are less visible immigrants from the US and Brazil -- but such people are typically of Japanese origin.

Quote:As for Europe, it's less conservative then Asia but way more conservative then say the U.S. I would honestly say the only major change for Europe has been less group intermarriage and more marriage between fellow Europeans. But this is mainly amongst the middle classes.

I can easily imagine German citizens marrying French citizens of German stock in Alsace. Many Austrians are of Slovene, Croatian, Czech, or Hungarian origin...

Quote:I'll go a step further and say that rather then a coffee coloured future, it is likely European starts to dismantle some of its traditional nation states and reshapes itself into new regions, very similar to what happened with the German states before Bismarckian unification.

Homogenization between people with similar languages? Maybe... But consider that what a Roman said of imperial Rome -- that when one speaks of people, the Orontes (in the border area between modern Syria and Turkey), the Nile, the Ebro, the Vardar, the Seine, and the Po (far-northern modern Italy was then called Cis-Alpine Gaul due to a Celtic population) flow through the Tiber. More recently during British history, the Indus, Ganges, Irrawaddy, Niger, and Zambezi rivers flowed into the Thames. The Poles may look more like white English people than do largely-black Jamaicans... but the largely-black Jamaicans learned English ((or their ancestors did) in schools modeled after English schools.

Quote:Still, your views are very American and I agree that for America, it is the likely future. As a friend of mine from Finland once jokingly noted to me, "in America, 1/3 of the population will deliberately shag outside their race. 1/3 will not shag outside the group. The remaining 1/3 do not care who they shag." He also noted that America's future is likely to be the orange man from South Park.

Ugly as the topic is, American pornography has multiple categories, and among the categories are race-based porn that often play up stereotypes about different 'racial' groups. That itself subdivides into some involving dominance relations between mixed couples. Porn says much about the sexual hang-ups that people have, and it wouldn't be lucrative if people did not have those hang-ups.

Interracial marriage (unless involving elderly people) will more likely result in mixed-race children than will "shagging", but in the latter there will be 'accidents'. Children of a white person and a mixed-race person are still mixed-race, but at some measure of dilution of the non-white ethnicity some offspring can pass as white (or at least not black) without really trying.

[David Horn]

(06-13-2020, 05:52 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(06-13-2020, 07:42 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-13-2020, 05:44 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote:

(06-12-2020, 07:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-12-2020, 02:29 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Homo galacticus will be freer than Homo sapiens, because he will be less enslaved by evolved psychology inherited from cavemen. Freer, and at the same time more spontaneously virtuous. There will more diversity of personalities, but dangerous traits like sadism and psychopathy won't be present.

What we are, and how we react to our environment, has been baked-in over the entirety of human existence.  Some we inherited from much earlier life, like fight or flight.  I have a hard time seeing that being wiped away by moving our progeny into space, unless homo galacticus isn't derived from us.

Homo galacticus will have all that is best in us, and things which aren't so wholesome will be either eliminated or subdued. I don't say it'll happen as a result of moving into space, but as a result of genetic engineering.

And as for race mixing and downplaying ethnic heritage, Mars will be more American than America. A melted pot on steroids!

That's a beautiful vision neither of us will see. It's beautiful nonetheless.  If it happens, and I remain a sceptic, it will require a full saeculum to implement.

Sounds like a Brigadoon type vision, doesn’t it?

Since we're citing Broadway musicals, sometimes things really are good in Glocca Morra.

[pbrower2a]

Tara -- learn Slovak. That is one way in which to show an intent to remain there. Czech or Polish would be more useful from a cultural standpoint because there is more literature in both, and Slovak is fairly close to both.

[beechnut79]

(06-14-2020, 03:13 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(06-09-2020, 02:59 PM)Isoko Wrote: So there was a post earlier by Eric the Green stating his usual left wing kingdom of heaven beliefs. Basically the how the world is going to continually be globalised and how everyone is going to be one big mixed race blob in the future with no countries or identies.

Now I've heard this what I'd like to call left wing kingdom of heaven beliefs before. So I recoiled in horror at such a prospect, saying how I'll be glad to be dead before such a world comes into existence. I have no shame in saying this and I would like to elaborate more on thoughts here about this concept.

The truth is, why would we want to live in such a world? Would it make the world a better place to live in? Why would such a world become better and more desirable then the previous one? There is a naive delusion amongst the left that if we mix everyone together, then all problems vanish and we can love one another. But Human beings are what they are and would simply find another reason to hate.

If we were to follow this version to the fullest, I think overall we would end up in the India scenario. There would be a lighter brown elite at the top and a darker brown proletariat at the bottom, fighting for whatever meager resources are available. How would it be an improvement on what we have now? Would it merely be a repeat of the past?

To be honest, this belief actually frightens me to think people actually believe this would make the world a better place. I will share you my ideal world and it is one that is common in the Russian Federation. It is designed on centre right thinking but I think it is a better ideal then the one I have just discussed.

A world of borders with different people and ethnic groups that learn to cooperate with each other. Imagine it like a street and we have different houses in the street. Do we all live in the same house? No. But we all live on the same street and look out for one another. Every house is different too and has its own unique vibrancy and taste.

You know, the Russian Federation is a nation of many different tribes and nations. Yet they do not mix together en masse but they live together peacefully as neighbours. As a result, a lot of traditions and identities are passed down through the generations and continue to do so. 

What is better I ask you all? A world government where everybody looks the same, acts the same, wears the same clothes? Where there is no Japan? No Russia? No Angola? Wouldn't that be a boring world to live in? 

Wouldn't real progress be living in peace with each other but preserving what we have to make the future even brighter? This I think is a real test of Humanity and if we could achieve this without the destruction of "progress", then boy, wouldn't we have achieved something? The preservation of the old combined with the new.

Is it wrong to dream this way? Is it unrealistic? I don't know. Does it make me racist for not desiring the left wing future? Or maybe an idealist perhaps?

Maybe it is but a sad and depressing reality. Maybe we are all destined to become the same. Depresses me a lot to think about actually. Always has done. I never saw any light in it.

Dunno if anyone feels the same way but give me a shout out if you do think it would be a sad reality.

I am not American, but given my recent move to Slovakia from New Zealand i can tell you NZ will always be my home. It is a part of me and any time i hear someone speaking english, i am drawn to that person. It is not a part of me to speak slovak, to live in a new culture. I do not mix well together in my new country and therefore it is not a part of who i am. i for one would be drawn to people who come from where i come from. Sadly there are no other kiwi's in Slovakia. This does not make me a racist for wanting to cling to something familiar and pull away from the unknown. But rather i miss what i am used to and a bit of home would make me feel like i have a bit of home away from home. You simply cannot have people from all sorts of backgrounds and expect to get along in one place as there would of course be a culture clash and arguments can come from confusion. I have had this happen already here in Slovakia. New societal pressures and a new culture. It makes me uncomfortable at times and id feel much happier with what feels more authentic to me. You can take the kiwi out of NZ but you cannot take the culture out of the kiwi. Unrealistic to believe it will happen. However are American lefties acting and believing in a blended culture where everyone gets along with everyone? Surely they realize that just is not possible. This is not possible with anything really. People will always fragment and stereotype and hate on whatever feels unfamiliar or whatever does not blend with their beliefs, regardless of culture. Always has been the way, always will be i imagine.

The last part of this letter is so spot on. Reminds me of all the love one another attempts during the flower children days.

[Mikebert]

(06-12-2020, 08:07 AM)Isoko Wrote: 1. The vast majority of mixing usually occurs in America.

2. Actually...the vast majority of ethnic groups in Russia get along. They live separately and usually marry within their own groups but overall there isn't any animosity and ever has been.

3. I'd say this great melting pot concept is more of an American thing if I am honest. Still, your views are very American and I agree that for America, it is the likely future. As a friend of mine from Finland once jokingly noted to me, "in America, 1/3 of the population will deliberately shag outside their race. 1/3 will not shag outside the group. The remaining 1/3 do not care who they shag."

Point 2. Do they? Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Holodomor? Plus Chechnya, as you mentioned.   The Russian Federation seems to be just that, Russian.

Points 1 & 3: America is different from other nations. We are a legal/philosophical nation, a pure Polity (state society). All nations are a Polity, and most have some correspondence with an Ethnie (an ethnic nationality). For example other countries have a name for their country (e.g. Russia. France, China, Mexico etc.) We don't, we are the United States of America. We are named for the continent on which the states were located. In fact, we were founded as a confederation, like Germany. We didn't become a nation until 1868 when the 14th Amendment defined citizens as those born or naturalized withing the boundaries of the United States. Long before this, people had called us America, and so we officially began the "American" nation in 1868.  But we had to fight a civil war to get to that point.

Now we could have set up a nation at the Constitutional convention, based on the dominant ethnic group of the time, English. But we had just fought a revolution against the English and did not want to acknowledge that we we were an English nation, because that would mean we should never have rebelled against our King. So we did not set up "America" as an English nation.

We could have defined American in terms of some ethnicity (e.g. English) but we had just fought a bloody war, into which the English had considered intervening. Furthermore we just made our people of West African ancestry (13% of us) American citizens. So we defined "American" as those who were born or naturalized here. It is a political/legal definition, not an ethnicity.

We never explicitly defined America as English per se, although our ruling class was English (WASP) and people were expected to learn English when they came here, (but you have to speak the language to get ahead, so the youth tend to learn it anyway). But we do have a culture. All the immigrant scientists at work acknowledge that their kids are Americans and radically different from what they were like in youth back in the homeland. But they chose to come here, they knew full well this would happen.

What unites us is a shared political and legal tradition, built on English antecedents, but which has evolved independently for a quarter millennium.  We are also a Western nation, as are all of the countries of the New World, who speak Western European languages and are ancestrally Western in religion/philosophy. For religion that means Roman Catholicism & its Protestant offshoots (not Orthodox). For philosophy that means some type of liberalism.

Today people speak of an assault on liberalism by "postmodernism" or "Wokism". Yet the core content of these philosophies is some kind of moral argument. But where to the morals come from? What grounds them? Why is mass incarceration or police violence on black men wrong? Why is a system that keeps most people in a subservient/dependent position relative to the ruling class wrong? It comes from the things mentioned in the previous paragraph.

[Mikebert]

(06-14-2020, 03:13 PM)taramarie Wrote: I am not American, but given my recent move to Slovakia from New Zealand i can tell you NZ will always be my home. It is a part of me and any time i hear someone speaking english, i am drawn to that person. It is not a part of me to speak slovak, to live in a new culture. I do not mix well together in my new country and therefore it is not a part of who i am. i for one would be drawn to people who come from where i come from. Sadly there are no other kiwi's in Slovakia. This does not make me a racist for wanting to cling to something familiar and pull away from the unknown. But rather i miss what i am used to and a bit of home would make me feel like i have a bit of home away from home. You simply cannot have people from all sorts of backgrounds and expect to get along in one place as there would of course be a culture clash and arguments can come from confusion. I have had this happen already here in Slovakia. New societal pressures and a new culture. It makes me uncomfortable at times and id feel much happier with what feels more authentic to me. You can take the kiwi out of NZ but you cannot take the culture out of the kiwi. Unrealistic to believe it will happen. However are American lefties acting and believing in a blended culture where everyone gets along with everyone? Surely they realize that just is not possible. This is not possible with anything really. People will always fragment and stereotype and hate on whatever feels unfamiliar or whatever does not blend with their beliefs, regardless of culture. Always has been the way, always will be i imagine.

Why are you living in Slovakia?  I am an American, I don't want to live somewhere where they don't speak English.

[Blazkovitz]

(06-14-2020, 06:47 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Brave New World -- literally. Such implies its own hierarchy of privilege and deprivation based upon intelligence. But note well that that dystopian society still depends upon the intellectual "deltas" and "epsilons" who end up doing the mindless, repetitive toil such as farm labor. 

I didn't read Huxley's Brave New World, but I don't think my ideal of the future is comparable to it. "Hierarchy of privilege and deprivation based upon intelligence"? There might be still hierarchy, but basic human societies often get extremely hierarchical, from Pharaoh's Egypt to modern China. As for deprivation, there should be less deprivation than in the current era. Deltas and epsilons won't be needed, because all mindless and repetitive toil will be done by machines.

I'm sure that I've written about post-scarcity here, but in case I didn't:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/53727c57a8402
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48239c6673359

It will take long time to get there, but there will be progressively less and less deprivation, not more.

Quote:Man will need some integration with machines just to move fast (vehicles) or to work in dangerous environments (space, the deep sea, highly-radioactive or anoxic locations, maybe some very deep (and hot) mines...  maybe we will have integration of mechanical parts with the human mind to extend lifespans of the mind or to restore natural mobility to people who have lost it due to amputations or spinal-cord injuries)... but we had better preserve our human characteristics for such to work.

100% agreement. Maybe we will figure out how to control machines remotely with out thoughts, using some wifi-like units implanted in the brain, rather than becoming ugly Cybermen.

[Blazkovitz]

(06-14-2020, 06:02 PM)Mikebert Wrote: What unites us is a shared political and legal tradition, built on English antecedents, but which has evolved independently for a quarter millennium.  We are also a Western nation, as are all of the countries of the New World, who speak Western European languages and are ancestrally Western in religion/philosophy. For religion that means Roman Catholicism & its Protestant offshoots (not Orthodox). For philosophy that means some type of liberalism.

I always thought Orthodoxy and Catholicism are more like each other, than like Protestantism:
http://christianityinview.com/comparison.html

Puritanism was closer to Judaism than to Catholicism in its attitudes. Some Catholics I knew actually said that Puritanism is Judaism with pork!

Overall I always considered Russians a part of Western civilization, and this is how the Middle East views them too. But when it comes to politics, Russians are more resistant to democracy than Indonesia with its exotic heritage. Is this because of Stalin's purges, which unwittingly eliminated all people with genetic traits conducive to supporting democracy?

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-15-2020, 03:20 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Overall I always considered Russians a part of Western civilization, and this is how the Middle East views them too. But when it comes to politics, Russians are more resistant to democracy than Indonesia with its exotic heritage. Is this because of Stalin's purges, which unwittingly eliminated all people with genetic traits conducive to supporting democracy?

I always considered the invasions more important.  They got ate by the mongols, then beat back three attempts from Europe.  The Mongols taught them how to rule as conquered.  The rulers exploit the people.  The failures from Europe meant they never leaned the Enlightenment values.  They are still stuck on autocracy.

In many ways they are more European than Asian, culturally, if you just add vodka.  The twin curses of the leadership exploiting the people and lacking the Enlightenment virtues leaves them well behind Europe, far enough that they are commonly separated from it.